Fernando Bresme

Professor Fernando Bresme's research is concerned with the investigation of soft condensed matter. One essential characteristic of soft materials is their ability to self organise in complex structures. In his group they develop and apply computational methods and theoretical approaches to understand and interpret the behaviour of these materials. The current research focuses on three main topics: 1) interactions between nanoparticles and biomolecules at liquid-liquid and liquid-vapour interfaces, and how these interactions can be exploited to design interfacial molecular devices that can respond to external perturbations (e.g. external fields). 2) Structure and phase behaviour of soft materials (polyelectrolytes and membranes), with particular emphasis on the role of the solvent in determining their properties and 3) Non equilibrium phenomena at nanoscale interfaces, in particular, the investigation of energy transfer processes across interfaces of relevance in high performance materials (e.g. nanofluids).

Summary

Our research is concerned with the computational and theoretical investigation of the structure and dynamics of complex interfaces of chemical relevance; colloids, biopolymers, membranes and nanomaterials, which form the buiding blocks of soft materials. The interfacial physico-chemical behaviour often confers striking properties to these materials, by mediating and promoting a whole range of chemical processes.

One of our main areas of interest is the investigation of transport phenomena at nanoscale interfaces. Current efforts are directed towards the development of computational tools to quantify energy transport across these interfaces, and the application of these tools to design high performance materials for energy management problems (e.g., super-insulating and highly conductive media) and nanomaterials with chemical and medical applications (e.g. catalysis, medical therapies).

We are particularly interested in the investigation of novel physical concepts for energy conversion and energy recovery applications (e.g., recovery of waste heat).

In our group we combine non-equilibrium and equilibrium computer simulations, non-equilibrium thermodynamics theory and experiments to investigate the equilibrium and non-equilibrium response of soft matterials.